Rescheduled from January 25 (Tuesday) and February 2
Technology Advisory Committee February 22, 2011
Present: Chris Pollet, Tim Moynahan, Peggy Balboni, Judy Prince, Sheila Adams, Lane Richardson, Liz Barrett, and Laura (Bond) Sunderland
Not Present: Jim Katkin, Mary Lyons, Bonnie Vadala
Role of Technology Advisory Council The committee was formed with representatives from the school board, administrators, technology department, classroom teachers, Integrated Arts and the Para professionals. This combination will bring many different perspectives to the committee.
Chris opened the discussion stating the Role of TAC (Technology Advisory Council) was to define the direction of technology in the Rye Schools. The items the TAC would discuss may include how to move forward with technology, the budget process, meeting teacher needs, and staff limitations. Those present read a handout of the Rye School District Technology Committee vision that came from the current technology plan to prepare this vision for the renewal of our plan to be approved by the State of NH Department of Education.
Some of the comments were; should a survey be sent out with more specific questions to be answered by staff to get a feel for what they might want; and a suggestion that the survey be more generic so that people would have to ask for what they wanted from the budget for technology; why the assessment is in the spring as opposed to the fall when the budget is reviewed. If it were in the fall when we came back to school we may have new ideas or items that are needed which could be changed in our purchasing., This would allow these ideas and items to be brought forward to Lane, Chris and Tim to propose to be put into the new budget or may change what is ordered in the current budget.
The tech advisory members will take back information to staff and get input from them on these issues.
Professional Development The School Board (I think that I said that the school board has been supportive of professional development needs necessary to improve our ability to meet our students' learning needs in technology. We need to know what the specific needs are in order to fund them.)has a lack of knowledge for what is needed for Professional Development. This committee would recommend necessary professional development and Peggy could inform the school board. If in the budget process we follow the original direction and stay true to the budget it does not allow us to stay true to our Tech plan where we state that we will assess the tech needs and change our purchases based on that. It was recommended to offer professional development during release time. Money for this may be found from the professional development funds, the budget, the Principal directed money, grants or other sources.
It was recommended (Was this the group concensus? The master plan does offer guidelines for this.)that when a staff member offers training they are paid for their work. Professional development taught by our staff members to others is much less expensive than paying for college courses for individuals. This not only saves money, but creates congeniality within the schools and among the staff. No other industry supplies training without paying for it. There are also some free classes available online. Short technology training can be included in the monthly staff meeting, even if it just to tease staff and promote interest to get them on board with new technology.
Is it possible that the teacher contract language be interpreted to allow teachers to vote to use a pool of the Professional development money collectively as opposed to individually to purchase training for the teaching staff. (According to the contract "up to 20% of the fund shall be used for professional evelopment mandated by the Principals to meet school and district goals")
Site visits to other school may help us find different ways to fund professional development. Chris believes that money can be found to pay for instructors, not for participants. If we recognize the importance of professional development we should dedicate money to support it.
We need to develop a progressive plan for professional development so teachers don’t fall behind students. Since staff is at different levels in their technology skills, training should include items that meet personal goals, school goals, and district goals. Some teachers have taken classes in the use of technology, but they don’t know how to apply it to visionary ideas for the classroom. In the past frustration has been experienced when training was completed and teachers had the knowledge but didn’t have the equipment to use to apply these newly learned skills. What commitment we want to take for technology is important and needs to be considered at the budget level to decide what is practical for students use, classroom use and district use.
Some teachers are using self-made PowerPoint presentations and web based programs and to save paper and supplies. These also give teachers immediate feedback of the student’s skills.
To make sure staff continue to improve their tech skills, an annual requirement could be that each teacher creates at least one lesson using technology in the classroom. Also it could become a requirement that every 3 years teachers need to take a workshop/class/course in some sort of technology.
Tasks from this meeting The task is to review the vision in the tech plan, and reflect upon the vision on the wiki. The tech plan is included in the left hand column on the wiki page. Tim showed the existing plan and the newly started draft to be worked on. Please save any work as 97-2003 to make it readable by anyone who does not have Office 2007.
Recommended Training ISTE Technology Conference will be in Pennsylvania this summer. It was suggested that professional development money be used to send key players to attend this conference. These people would be expected to share the information from the conference with other staff members. There is possibly some grant money available (approximately $3,000).
Christa McAuliffe Technology Conference held in Manchester, NH would also be a great resource for staff to attend for technology. Some schools shut down to enable their staff to attend. It was suggested that Rye may want to do this or at least rotate staff member attendance over the three days. It would be good to get teachers to create lesson plans so that they could get out of their classroom to attend. Rye could buy a conference bundle of tickets to have multiple people go on different days. Sheila will look into the cost of these and the cost for the entire teaching staff to attend. MITI (make it and take it) workshops are at an additional cost, but are well worth it.
SAU#50 Technology Development Rubric Appendix J SAU #50 Technology Development Rubric (Appendix J) needs to be improved to show where individuals are, where individuals are going, to get more information of strengths and weaknesses to project what we need as a group for professional development Tim displayed appendix J in the tech plan which shows the rubric. The Media and Library PLC have talked about reviewing that at the next meeting. It is necessary to keep the teachers skills ahead of the students in technology, which is a real challenge. Technology is what some of the students in the classroom really connect with so we want to make sure it is available. It also develops higher thinking skills for students.
RJH Website Consistency It was recommended that RJH teacher websites have consistency, using a common format for blogs and calendars so grade level pages look the same. This would make it easier for parents use from year to year.
The Technology PLC is creating a plan for the standards. The Tech PLC should be first to meet next year so the Technology standards can be incorporated into the grade level subject areas.
Tech Integrator A Tech Integrator is needed for the schools. It is not likely that any new jobs will be created so we will have to be creative in filling this need. A critical piece to make this happen is to relook at the people in the tech roles and see if they can do more integrating or if we could combine a couple of classes for a teacher to teach the science and allow Sheila Adams to be the integrator for 1/3 of the day. (This is just a a suggestion. I am not sure that we want to put out a specific name here.)
NASA Sheila announced that she is going NASA in Florida to see the lift off. Lane asked that she come to RES to show pictures and do a presentation about this. Sheila agreed and said she will be tweeting from Florida for people to follow.
Flow chart Lane created a flowchart for the Tech Adv Council which is a separate document.
February 22, 2011 Technology Advisory Council Agenda and Minutes
Agenda
1) Norms and Protocols
2) Tech Plan
3) Tech Integrator
4) Other
MINUTES
Rescheduled from January 25 (Tuesday) and February 2
Technology Advisory CommitteeFebruary 22, 2011
Present: Chris Pollet, Tim Moynahan, Peggy Balboni, Judy Prince, Sheila Adams, Lane Richardson, Liz Barrett, and Laura (Bond) Sunderland
Not Present: Jim Katkin, Mary Lyons, Bonnie Vadala
Role of Technology Advisory Council
The committee was formed with representatives from the school board, administrators, technology department, classroom teachers, Integrated Arts and the Para professionals. This combination will bring many different perspectives to the committee.
Chris opened the discussion stating the Role of TAC (Technology Advisory Council) was to define the direction of technology in the Rye Schools. The items the TAC would discuss may include how to move forward with technology, the budget process, meeting teacher needs, and staff limitations. Those present read a handout of the Rye School District Technology Committee vision that came from the current technology plan to prepare this vision for the renewal of our plan to be approved by the State of NH Department of Education.
Some of the comments were; should a survey be sent out with more specific questions to be answered by staff to get a feel for what they might want; and a suggestion that the survey be more generic so that people would have to ask for what they wanted from the budget for technology; why the assessment is in the spring as opposed to the fall when the budget is reviewed. If it were in the fall when we came back to school we may have new ideas or items that are needed which could be changed in our purchasing., This would allow these ideas and items to be brought forward to Lane, Chris and Tim to propose to be put into the new budget or may change what is ordered in the current budget.
The tech advisory members will take back information to staff and get input from them on these issues.
Professional Development
The School Board (I think that I said that the school board has been supportive of professional development needs necessary to improve our ability to meet our students' learning needs in technology. We need to know what the specific needs are in order to fund them.)has a lack of knowledge for what is needed for Professional Development. This committee would recommend necessary professional development and Peggy could inform the school board. If in the budget process we follow the original direction and stay true to the budget it does not allow us to stay true to our Tech plan where we state that we will assess the tech needs and change our purchases based on that. It was recommended to offer professional development during release time. Money for this may be found from the professional development funds, the budget, the Principal directed money, grants or other sources.
It was recommended (Was this the group concensus? The master plan does offer guidelines for this.)that when a staff member offers training they are paid for their work. Professional development taught by our staff members to others is much less expensive than paying for college courses for individuals. This not only saves money, but creates congeniality within the schools and among the staff. No other industry supplies training without paying for it. There are also some free classes available online. Short technology training can be included in the monthly staff meeting, even if it just to tease staff and promote interest to get them on board with new technology.
Is it possible that the teacher contract language be interpreted to allow teachers to vote to use a pool of the Professional development money collectively as opposed to individually to purchase training for the teaching staff. (According to the contract "up to 20% of the fund shall be used for professional evelopment mandated by the Principals to meet school and district goals")
Site visits to other school may help us find different ways to fund professional development. Chris believes that money can be found to pay for instructors, not for participants. If we recognize the importance of professional development we should dedicate money to support it.
We need to develop a progressive plan for professional development so teachers don’t fall behind students. Since staff is at different levels in their technology skills, training should include items that meet personal goals, school goals, and district goals. Some teachers have taken classes in the use of technology, but they don’t know how to apply it to visionary ideas for the classroom. In the past frustration has been experienced when training was completed and teachers had the knowledge but didn’t have the equipment to use to apply these newly learned skills. What commitment we want to take for technology is important and needs to be considered at the budget level to decide what is practical for students use, classroom use and district use.
Some teachers are using self-made PowerPoint presentations and web based programs and to save paper and supplies. These also give teachers immediate feedback of the student’s skills.
To make sure staff continue to improve their tech skills, an annual requirement could be that each teacher creates at least one lesson using technology in the classroom. Also it could become a requirement that every 3 years teachers need to take a workshop/class/course in some sort of technology.
Tasks from this meeting
The task is to review the vision in the tech plan, and reflect upon the vision on the wiki. The tech plan is included in the left hand column on the wiki page. Tim showed the existing plan and the newly started draft to be worked on. Please save any work as 97-2003 to make it readable by anyone who does not have Office 2007.
Recommended Training
ISTE Technology Conference will be in Pennsylvania this summer. It was suggested that professional development money be used to send key players to attend this conference. These people would be expected to share the information from the conference with other staff members. There is possibly some grant money available (approximately $3,000).
Christa McAuliffe Technology Conference held in Manchester, NH would also be a great resource for staff to attend for technology. Some schools shut down to enable their staff to attend. It was suggested that Rye may want to do this or at least rotate staff member attendance over the three days. It would be good to get teachers to create lesson plans so that they could get out of their classroom to attend. Rye could buy a conference bundle of tickets to have multiple people go on different days. Sheila will look into the cost of these and the cost for the entire teaching staff to attend. MITI (make it and take it) workshops are at an additional cost, but are well worth it.
SAU#50 Technology Development Rubric Appendix J
SAU #50 Technology Development Rubric (Appendix J) needs to be improved to show where individuals are, where individuals are going, to get more information of strengths and weaknesses to project what we need as a group for professional development Tim displayed appendix J in the tech plan which shows the rubric. The Media and Library PLC have talked about reviewing that at the next meeting. It is necessary to keep the teachers skills ahead of the students in technology, which is a real challenge. Technology is what some of the students in the classroom really connect with so we want to make sure it is available. It also develops higher thinking skills for students.
RJH Website Consistency
It was recommended that RJH teacher websites have consistency, using a common format for blogs and calendars so grade level pages look the same. This would make it easier for parents use from year to year.
The Technology PLC is creating a plan for the standards. The Tech PLC should be first to meet next year so the Technology standards can be incorporated into the grade level subject areas.
Tech Integrator
A Tech Integrator is needed for the schools. It is not likely that any new jobs will be created so we will have to be creative in filling this need. A critical piece to make this happen is to relook at the people in the tech roles and see if they can do more integrating or if we could combine a couple of classes for a teacher to teach the science and allow Sheila Adams to be the integrator for 1/3 of the day. (This is just a a suggestion. I am not sure that we want to put out a specific name here.)
NASA
Sheila announced that she is going NASA in Florida to see the lift off. Lane asked that she come to RES to show pictures and do a presentation about this. Sheila agreed and said she will be tweeting from Florida for people to follow.
Flow chart
Lane created a flowchart for the Tech Adv Council which is a separate document.